Another One for the History Books

The back of this post card tells us that the locomotive is an Erie Lackawanna GP-7 waiting at Essex Fells, New Jersey to interchange freight

with the Morristown & Erie Railroad. It says, "Shortly, the GP7 will meet an M&E Alco, exchange freight and both will be on their way. June 26, 1965." This website provides us with some history of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad: https://erielackhs.org/railroads/ Here is an excerpt from that website: The Erie-Lackawanna Railroad was formed by the merger of the Erie Railroad with the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western on October 17, 1960. (A minor renaming occurred in late 1963 when the hyphen was dropped.) The new railroad took after its parent Erie; the largest amount of Lackawanna influence seemed to be paint. Both of EL's parents entered the merger after a couple of years of deficit operations, and EL continued their record, except for 1965 and 1966. EL quickly consolidated its passenger services, with most trains following the ex-Lackawanna route east of Binghamton and the ex-Erie route west. Long-distance passenger trains were gradually cut back during the 1960s, and the last Hoboken-Chicago train was discontinued in 1970, leaving EL with a single daily commuter round trip between Cleveland and Youngstown and its extensive New Jersey commuter services. In 1967 the state of New Jersey began subsidizing the service and in 1970 began to acquire new cars and locomotives for the trains on the ex-Erie routes and the non-electrified Lackawanna lines (the Lackawanna electric cars would continue running until 1984). The Cleveland-Youngstown train lasted until 1977. In 1960 Chesapeake & Ohio began acquiring Baltimore & Ohio stock, and in November 1961 New York Central and Pennsylvania announced their intention to merge. In 1964 Norfolk & Western teamed up with Nickel Plate, Wabash, Pittsburgh & West Virginia, and Akron, Canton & Youngstown. Erie Lackawanna was suddenly surrounded, or thought it would be, when all the mergers were approved, and asked to be included in the Norfolk & Western system. In 1965 Norfolk & Western and Chesapeake & Ohio announced their merger plan, which would include EL and several other smaller eastern railroads, to be held by a wholly owned subsidiary holding company named Dereco. The N&W-C&O merger didn't take place, but on March 1, 1968, Dereco and the Erie Lackawanna Railway were both incorporated. Dereco exchanged its shares for Erie Lackawanna Railway's 1,000 shares. On April 1, 1968, the Erie Lackawanna Railway merged with the Erie Lackawanna Railroad. Stockholders of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad received Dereco shares. To put it in simpler language, Norfolk & Western bought the Erie Lackawanna at arm's length. Hurricane Agnes hit the East on June 22, 1972. After estimating that damage to the railroad, principally between Binghamton and Salamanca, N. Y., amounted to $9.2 million, EL filed for bankruptcy on June 26, 1972. During the reorganization of the eastern railroads, it was thought that EL might be able to reorganize on its own, and there was a proposal by Chessie System to buy a portion of the EL. However, Chessie canceled the agreement and EL asked to be included in Conrail. Consolidated Rail Corporation took over EL's operations on April 1, 1976. Conrail's map excluded most of the former Erie main line west of Marion, Ohio. The Erie Western was formed to operate the 152 miles from Decatur to Hammond, Indiana, with subsidy from the state of Indiana. The road operated for a brief period in 1978 and 1979, but the subsidy was withdrawn and on-line traffic wasn't sufficient to support the operation. Other shortline operators have taken over various parts of EL with more success; they are listed in the entries for the Erie and the Lackawanna. As an odd valedictory for EL, parent Norfolk & Western donated its 1,000 shares of Erie Lackawanna stock and the corporate records to the University of Virginia in 1983.

The photo on the post card was taken by Carl H. Sturner the founder of Audio Visual Designs, the company that published the post card. Audio-Visual Designs originally focused on providing railroad post cards and reel to reel audio tapes of trains in action. That is where the “Audio” of their name came from. This website provides more information about this still-standing company: https://www.audiovisualdesigns.com/about

Is that a "Bluebird" that I See?

This website tells us almost everything we want to know about the front of this post card: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_U34CHU34CH

What we are seeing is one locomotive of a fleet of 32 that were built by General Electric for Erie-Lackawanna and the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT). The locomotive is a U34CH fitted with heating equipment to handle commuter trains in northern New Jersey. This picture was taken in 1972. The U34CH is a 3,600 hp passenger diesel locomotive built by General Electric between 1970 and 1973. In total, 33 U34CH units were built; 32 were built for the New Jersey Department of Transportation and operated by the Erie Lackawanna Railway and, later, Conrail, with the last unit coming as a later rebuild of a GE U30C for the New York MTA. The 32 initial locomotives operated with new Pullman Standard push-pull coaches. The units were intended to replace locomotives in suburban commuter service out of Hoboken, New Jersey. The U34CH was the first GE locomotive to use steel crowned pistons to develop 3,600 hp and was the first commuter locomotive built with shaft driven HEP–that is, a Head End Power alternator driven by the locomotive prime mover rather than by a separate diesel. In the next sentence, F indicates a cylinder bore of 9 inches; D identifies the engine configuration with the master and auxiliary connecting rods; and L refers to the service as “locomotive”. To provide HEP at the proper AC frequency the FDL-16 prime mover ran at a constant 900 RPM, so traction horsepower was 3430 minus whatever was going into HEP. By contrast, when not providing HEP, the FDL-16 could produce 3600 traction horsepower at its usual 1050 RPM. To show their NJDOT ownership, the units were painted in a dark blue and silver paint scheme with NJDOT logo and were often called "Bluebirds" by rail enthusiasts. The U34CHs on the weekends were sometimes used in Erie Lackawanna freight service, often being on freight duty from Saturday to Sunday and returning to commuter service Monday morning.

The post card was published by Railcards.com

We Are Lucky to Have This Picture

In this post card’s picture, the Alco RS3 locomotives are fresh out of the car wash and are headed back to the yard for their assignments. The picture was taken in 1964, not too many years after the company that owned them, the Erie-Lackawanna, was formed.

On October 17, 1960, the Erie Railroad (ERIE) and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad (DLW) merged to form the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad (EL). The ERIE originally connected Jersey City, New Jersey to Lake Erie at Dunkirk, New York. It later expanded operations to include Chicago, Illinois. The DLW basically connected Hoboken, New Jersey with Buffalo, New York and primarily was meant to carry anthracite coal from Pennsylvania to markets. Both lines carried passengers along their routes; so they merged those services into one. The DLW lines handled passenger east of Binghamton, New York (halfway between New York City and Buffalo); the ERIE line handled the western part. Starting in 1960 there were some acquisitions, mergers, stock trading and other machinations that eventually led to the Norfolk & Western Railroad owning the EL. Hurricane Agnes caused an estimating to $9.2 million to the railroad, which forced the EL to file for bankruptcy on June 26, 1972. CONRAIL took over EL's operations on April 1, 1976. Conrail's map excluded most of the former Erie main line west of Marion, Ohio. There is a copyrighted (©1985 by Kalmbach Publishing Co.) history of the Erie, the Lackawanna, and the Erie-Lackawanna Railroads at this website: https://erielackhs.org/railroads/

Here is the back of the post card... I would really like to know something about this company.